Explain the underlined sentences in this excerpt of Obama's victory speech (research if need be)
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can.
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes, we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes, we can. When the bombs fell on our harbour and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes, we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "we shall overcome". Yes, we can. A man touched down on the Moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes, we can.
Read the article below and comment on the sentences in red.
Write a 100 word personal response to this article.
A long march
November 6, 2008, The Age
IT HAS been a long march. On January 20, 2009, Americans will have as their president a man of colour. Only a few decades ago, this would have seemed unthinkable, and a century ago the stuff of wild-headed fantasy and recklessness. Labelled niggers and coons, African-Americans were slaves to the white man and woman. They were items of commerce, mere property, bought and sold for their labour.
They were regarded as an inferior race. Their physiology examined by bigots of an abhorrent science of hatred and ignorance that concluded African-Americans were worth less than a white.
They came to America as a harvested crop from Africa, captured not only by Americans, but the British as well, to prop up white economies. They were segregated, ostracised, spat on, laughed at, hated and hanged, their death from lynchings made into a public spectacle.
Barack Obama was born in 1961 as the civil rights movement was gaining strength. Its champion of that time was Martin Luther King jnr, who was shot dead 40 years ago. It is no small mark of progress that the US now celebrates Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday, legislation signed by a Republican, Ronald Reagan, when he was president.
But Martin Luther King had a dream. He declared it two years after Obama was born, in 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington when 200,000 marched on the capital.
King roared: "We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until 'justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream'."
If King were alive he would see the realisation of his dream "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' " Democracy has delivered on that dream.
Photo from The Age, 06/11/08.Explain the significance of this sign.
Obama's Victory Speech
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7710038.stmExplain the underlined sentences in this excerpt of Obama's victory speech (research if need be)
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can.
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes, we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes, we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbour and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes, we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "we shall overcome". Yes, we can.
A man touched down on the Moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes, we can.
Read the article below and comment on the sentences in red.
Write a 100 word personal response to this article.A long march
- November 6, 2008, The Age
IT HAS been a long march. On January 20, 2009, Americans will have as their president a man of colour. Only a few decades ago, this would have seemed unthinkable, and a century ago the stuff of wild-headed fantasy and recklessness. Labelled niggers and coons, African-Americans were slaves to the white man and woman. They were items of commerce, mere property, bought and sold for their labour.They were regarded as an inferior race. Their physiology examined by bigots of an abhorrent science of hatred and ignorance that concluded African-Americans were worth less than a white.
They came to America as a harvested crop from Africa, captured not only by Americans, but the British as well, to prop up white economies. They were segregated, ostracised, spat on, laughed at, hated and hanged, their death from lynchings made into a public spectacle.
Barack Obama was born in 1961 as the civil rights movement was gaining strength. Its champion of that time was Martin Luther King jnr, who was shot dead 40 years ago. It is no small mark of progress that the US now celebrates Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday, legislation signed by a Republican, Ronald Reagan, when he was president.
But Martin Luther King had a dream. He declared it two years after Obama was born, in 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington when 200,000 marched on the capital.
King roared: "We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until 'justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream'."
If King were alive he would see the realisation of his dream "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' "
Democracy has delivered on that dream.